Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who flies into Kochi this evening on his first visit to Kerala, would be touching down on a political landscape dug up by a seething controversy over an alleged violation of protocol. 

The controversy has been generated by the withdrawal of an invitation to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy to a function in Kollam, where Modi would unveil a statue of former chief minister R Sankar. 

Sankar has also been a General Secretary of the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam, an outfit of the Ezhava community. 

The function in Kollam is being hosted by the SNDP, currently headed by General Secretary Vellappalli Natesan, who recently floated a new political party. 

It is widely believed that the the new party, the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), is cosying up to the BJP to form a coalition and fight the Assembly elections due in the state in the next few months.

Natesan had himself phoned the Chief Minister to inform him that an official invitation to him for the function was being withdrawn for as yet unexplained reasons. 

This has triggered a heated controversy in which the ruling coalition and even the Opposition have buried their political differences to come together to condemn the 'insult' heaped on the state. 

Clarifying his side, Natesan has argued that official protocol doesn't apply to a private function, which the statue unveiling ceremony fell under. 

He has also conveyed to his critics that the BJP need not be needlessly dragged into the controversy since the decision to withdraw the Chief Minister's invite was his own. 

Earlier, reports had suggested that Natesan was acting on behalf of the top leadership of the BJP since it wanted the focus of the Kollam function to remain on the BJP and the new party floated by Vellappalli Natesan. 

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